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Dark Echoes

Dark Echoes Reply,
And the Hollow Past
Yields forth the Dead
That never more than half-hidden lie.
Memories seep,
And out they creep;

Back again,
Forever.

December 23rd 1980

Flames. Bright, soft, warm flames in the darkness. Large flames, dancing like snakes. Tongues of purity waltzing to the insane wailings of a charmer's pipe. Flames swaying, blown and nurtured by the Borean Breeze, spreading across the silence of his thoughts like the eternal fires of Tartarus. Small flames, stabbing spears of salvation begging for a kindling soul to feed upon; consummation and deliverance. No problem. No problem. Not a one. Not a damned single one.

How many left? Rattle rattle six. More than enough to set the world alight, in the right hands. What could they teach him? What more could he learn? He'd read their manual of life from cover to cover and could quote verbatim from its grubby pages; he knew some secrets too, deadly,... secrets.

He could hear the people. Listen to the people. Nothing hidden; all in plain view. White. Pure. Crystalline. All of the people, whispering. Cold. Cold and dead. He could spare one. Just one. Keep me company in my solitude, amused in my misery, warm in the blue chill of the world's winter.

Spare just the one. He could.

The scraping sound of sulphur on sandpaper, normally drowned by the loudness of existence, bit through the silence of his cell like a single conjuration of thunder. The explosion of flame in his light-starved eyes stung sharply. He held the match gently, between thumb and forefinger, cupped in his scarred palms; cradled and protected from the harsh world like a child, safely encompassed in the warm, secure, protective bosom of its mother.

Blossom and grow. Birth and life. There, in his hand; Flame.

They had brought him here to save him, they had said; to help him because to be brutally frank he was in need of a little assistance. But he carried the knowledge of his salvation securely locked away and the means of his sacred deliverance stuffed down the front of his undies. Now who else could say that? Be honest. That is most definitely a first. Ah, but muscles and keys and needles and locks and buttons and pills,... like the back of his father's hand,... were his education and therapy. This is what they meant by 'assistance'. Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. It's all just means to an end stuff.

Blossom and grow. Birth and life. There in his hand; Flame.

The cell, small, cramped and silent, leapt alive in the glow from the Flame. Shadows, surprised from secret slumber, stretched and yawned across the unadorned walls in abstract mockery of their creators. Chair shadows, table shadows, freed from the enslavement of the dark by the Flame, never quite escaping from the clutches of reality, tied to their creators by a thin ink-black dancing thread. Elastic wraiths; exultant in their short existence, but longing for freedom.

Eyes only for the Flame. Fixed and focused upon the Flame. Burning and consuming. A rip in the fabric of the night marching up the slender wand of wood. Mesmerised, eyes watering, head nodding gently with the beating of Heart, relaxed and comfortable. No stress. No problem. The Flame fed on the wood, slowly eating and transforming; yellow into black. Consummation and deliverance. Birth and life and death and birth. Flame immortal. Ashes to ashes. Burning heat and cool salvation. Easy, in the right hands; in the hands of a true believer. So very easy. Laughter, like a Flame. Crackle and blister.

No problem.

He felt heat, but no pain as his fingers deftly transferred end to end, softly crunching on the calcified remains; Feeding the Flame. He was used to this, the scars on his hands a small price to pay for Feeding the Flame. Mute testimony to the trials of his life.

The Flame crept upwards towards its destiny; death. He looked about the room quickly, feeling keenly the need of the Flame for fresh food; for life. But they had taken it all away, and what little remained had been treated. Regulations. Denying nourishment to a child. He looked back in time to see the End. The Flame spat and hissed; finger grease. And then, softly, delicately, it shrank, gutted once in a final cry for life and died. While the memory of the Flame remained engraved on his vision like a ghost, he placed the dead wood on his tongue, heat hissing on spittle, and swallowed.

Silence and dark. Peace and death.


Christmas Eve 1980

Lights out.

Billy listened as the sixty-watter fizzed and hummed gently out of existence. Darkness was just dandy with Billy. It suited him fine. He always seemed to work better in the dark. Others might be afraid of the night, but Billy had always had an affinity with lightlessness. He could hear things in the dark. As clear as a scream. Little things; small squeaks and creaks. Big things; large groans, moans and of course, his voices. To Billy, everything had a voice, tree and stone, house and home; everything. Not that they could all speak. That would be silly; not everything needed to speak. But even those things incapable of speech could, and did, complain; often. Wheeze, mumble, splutter, grumble. Billy spent a good deal of time, mostly during the night, listening. The thick, black nocturnal world of the dark offered an escape, somewhere safe to hide and work; somewhere to think in relative peace. It seemed natural to him, secure. Unobtrusive. In the dark, life seemed so uncomplicated. Everything was so much clearer without the distraction of light.

'Light itself is an abomination really, when you stop to think about it,' thought Billy to himself. He often thought really profound thoughts; generally to himself.

'The whole Universe is black,' he thought, 'utterly and completely devoid of light. In fact, if all the light in the galaxy was gathered together in one place, it wouldn't amount to a bean, relative to all that black. Light gets too much publicity, too much airspace. Because of the local helium furnace. The Sun, after all is said and done, is one hell of a con-trick.' He frowned and snorted. 'At least good old mother nature had given the old ball a spin. At least She had given Night a purpose, a reason for being, a place in the world.' He cleared his throat, masking the gentle cough with his hand. 'Night,...' he declared, 'when the Earth turns its back on the Sun.' Pleased with the image, he glanced up and his eyes caught the dormant light-bulb, empty of life, hanging by its twisted umbilicus from an ornate plaster ceiling rose, itself a legacy from the hospital's more presentable past. It had no shade, his light-bulb, no fancy adornment nor colourful accoutrement to make it more presentable or pleasing to the eye. It was bare, clear and ugly. It dangled from his ceiling like a festering wart. It intruded upon his life, pierced his space like a thorn. He hated it. Especially lit. Electric light.

Electric lights were the spies in the sky. Spread across the dark world like a cancer, ripping the warm blanket of night apart. The Incessant, lidless watchers.

Billy shifted uncomfortably. He had no control over the electric light. Absolutely none. They had the switch. They could turn it on whenever They liked. There was a panel of switches, all neat and labelled in blue ink on a wall in the Nurses Booth near the dormitory. They flicked the switches for fun. Mister Jack was the worst. He would flick the switches accidentally, or so he said, because he couldn't read the labels. Who did he think he was kidding? Billy was too smart for that. They knew what They were doing, and why. Billy's cell would suddenly be bathed in that filthy light in the middle of the night. It was a subtle form of torture. Mister Jack had been in the army. He must have learned about it there. Billy spent some considerable time studiously ignoring it; long months of pretending not to notice, until, surprise surprise, it stopped happening so frequently. Eventually they gave up. It hadn't happened for over five years. Billy considered it a victory. He looked up again at the stark bulb, undisguised hatred brimming in his blue eyes. If only looks could kill. Really.

Darkness was the only true freedom.

Now light by Flame was something else. Fascinating. Mesmerising. The light it cast was itself alive. Untameable except by death. It existed, and the wise man kept his eye upon the Flame. Light and warmth in the same package. A true work of art. And if you could take the pain, Flame was an excellent teacher. And Billy could take the pain. He had learned to take the pain. Long ago, in a different place, he and the Flame had come to an understanding. It talked and he listened.

Blossom and Grow. Birth and Life.

Electricity was the servant of mankind, or so they proclaimed. He'd been wired up to it on many occasions and considered himself something of an expert on the subject. He knew his enemy, this enemy, well. They called it therapy. 'All part of the game,' thought Billy, quite enjoying himself. 'Part and parcel of their assistance program.' He glanced up at the bulb out of the corner of his eye. Inside the thin, milky boil of glass, he saw the pain-contorted sliver of twisted metal protruding down from its contacts, totally encased within its fragile prison. Filament. Element. Lifeless without power. His eyes followed the aged and dust-covered brown thread up to the ceiling.

'Let's face it,' he thought, 'you can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it. At the end of the day, you simply can't trust it. And without its melange of wires and fuses and switches, the whole concept falls apart. As useless as a fart in the wind.' He smiled at that. He made few jokes, but he liked the idea that a fart could possibly, under certain conditions, actually be useful. He sat on the side of the bed and scratched his nose, warming to this particular train of thought, but resist as he might, his eyes were constantly drawn upward to the solid droplet of glass. He sighed. Electricity worried Billy. He didn't understand how it worked. He worried about things if he didn't understand how they worked. Technology outstripping human understanding. Like aeroplanes and television. He knew that someone out there understood it, but knew also that they worked for Them. The Powers That Be. The Enemy. They had invented electricity so that they could keep tabs on everyone. Control. That's the name of the game. He knew that. And the trick was to play along, pretend to conform; keep your innermost self bricked-in and secure. It's a game, only They write the rules. It isn't an easy game to play either, because They have wires and points everywhere. In every house and every workplace. A direct line into every head; every brain. And they listen and watch. Under the harsh light of the lidless eyes, nothing is secret; nothing sacred.

Billy lifted himself from the bed and padded barefoot over to the cell door, careful not to disturb the six-inch plastic ruler protruding from between the lock and the wall.

In darkness there is life. Real life. And the only light allowed is Flame.

He listened intently to the muted, darkness-filtered sounds of the night. His night. No crickets chirping nor owls hooting, no gentle tree-leaf whispering nor wheat-field hissing. His night-time sounds. Billy's personal fugue. So very familiar; so very detested. Two doors down, the old, bent, crust of a man they call Charlie, with a face like a walnut, whimpering into his chest for his long-dead mother. In the cell opposite, Spader, the child murderer from Ontario, wittering and constantly complaining about the harshness of the grey hospital blankets. This, mixed with the cacophony of snoring, coughing and wheezing from the voluntaries in the open dorm. Billy's muzak. And then, on cue, the sound that he had been waiting for; the metallic clink of a heavy key-ring accompanied by the tinny wheezing of Mister Jack, the Chief Night Orderly, shuffling slowly along the corridor towards the staff toilet. Again.

All of these sounds, and more, were his. Intimately. In the fifteen long years since his admittance, he had become familiar with these nightly noises. As he lay awake, restrained in his cot in those first few weeks, he had begun to time these sounds with the beating of his heart; 'We don't allow watches and clocks here Billy. We want you to concentrate on getting better.' What a load of bollocks.

At first, some sounds had been strange to him, he couldn't recognise them. But later, as they came to see how harmless he was, when they had come to trust him and allow him access to the corridor and the amenities of C-Wing, he had discovered and identified, through laborious observation and experimentation; all of his sounds. The last, the dawn and dusk sound of Mister Jack's radiator key, creaking and straining on its ill-fitting bolt, had taken Billy almost two years. It passed the time. Besides, learning his noises was all part of Billy's game plan. It was hard work, but it was also necessary. And now he knew them all. They were his. He owned them. His deep knowledge of them was so complete, so perfect, that it almost gave him control over them.

Billy sat back on his haunches by the door and listened. Outside, the darkness was complete; thick clouds obscuring moon and stars. They would say it was almost midnight. The witching hour. It hadn't snowed yet, but from the snatches of conversation he had heard tonight, the staff hoped that it might, and the cheerful weatherman on the radio Ho-Ho-ho'd and promised all of his listeners a white Christmas. Billy hoped it would stay clear. He didn't give a damn about white Christmases. He wasn't feeling particularly kind-hearted tonight. 'Humbug,' he thought.

For tonight Billy was going bye-byes. Tonight he would be out.

Billy moved over to his bed and reached under the mattress for the loose bolts. He grimaced and gripped the bolts tightly, unscrewing them slowly, making no sound. The grimace was quite unnecessary, but it made him feel better; a little bit of over-acting never killed anybody after all. The old bolts moved quite easily. He had spent some time loosening them earlier. In anticipation. Time well spent. Definitely. He palmed the metal nuts' one by one until he held the heavy steel leg in his hand. Quietly, to himself, he half-whispered, half-sung, an old rhyme. His brother had sung it when Billy was young;

'O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling,
O Grave, thy victory?
The bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling,
For you but not for me.'

Billy closed his eyes and frowned. His Brother. He grimaced; this time for real. There was no pretence where his brother was concerned.

He pushed a pile of hardback books under the corner, especially selected for sturdiness. Various works of Kant and Wittgenstein. Marcus Aurelius' 'Meditations'. A Collected Works of William Shakespeare. All topped off with a hefty, black, leather-bound Russell. They were a perfect fit. `Apt,' he thought. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made. `How true,' he mused, hefting the steel leg in his right hand. `Oh how very true.'

He stood slowly, turned and padded across to the shuttered window. There was a small crack in the left-hand side, near the hinge, and he pressed his eye to it, looking down into the hospital grounds, over the flower beds, towards an ageing stone cottage under the eaves of the forest by the eleven-foot wall. It was a small cottage, made from orange sandstone with a black timber roof. It squatted by the wall like a sleeping troll, covered with trailing ivy and climbing roses, surrounded by a horrifically ornate garden and vegetable plot. Billy winced. Nature tamed. Only a twisted and deformed mind would order and lineate nature like that. And he called himself a gardener. Billy had only seen him on one occasion, and even then at a distance. Mister Jack had said that the hospital patients unnerved him. But something had struck Billy that day, something indefinable in the gardener's manner; in the way he methodically rubbed his broad, bent shoulders. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't remember what. And that frightened him. Billy usually had such a damned good memory. Robert Brandt, the gardener, was a weak point in Billy's overall scheme, as he readily admitted. Brandt was the only member of staff that lived outside the Hospital, on the grounds; beyond Billy's immediate reach. And look what he did to plants. Dear God in Heaven! Yes, Billy would have to reckon with Bob Brandt before he left.

In the cottage, an orange light shone through the rents in a pair of faded, tattered curtains. Billy watched, but could see no movement. He brushed the fringe off his forehead and out of his eyes and smiled. He liked a challenge. After all, where would we be without life's little challenges?

Behind him, the stumbling, shuffling sound of Mister Jack returning from the toilet, approached his door. Billy walked over to his bed and climbed onto it, turning onto his side. He briefly pretended to be asleep. Mister Jack never checked the cells on his way back, but there could always be a first time, and Billy wouldn't be caught out. The faltering footsteps passed slowly by. Billy waited until he heard the door to the Nurses Booth being opened and closed. He climbed back out of the bed and approached the cell door. It was a heavy wooden door, made of oak like all the others, but reinforced with thin steel plate painted a dull and drab grey. It had a heavy lock by the handle and two white-painted bolts on the outside. They hadn't used the bolts in years, ever since they became convinced that Billy truly didn't want to leave. Ever since he had become a model patient. They thought that the lock would be sufficient. It wasn't. But this was another of Billy's little secrets.

One day, almost eight months ago, he had heard a peculiar sound as Mister Jack had locked his cell door. It wasn't a sound in its own right, not a separate sound; it didn't live on its own; didn't have a life of it's own. This sound was part of another, shared its life if you like. And the life that it shared was the sound of the bolt being turned by the key and sliding into the hole. Now Billy knew that sound. Intimately. He had heard it virtually every night for the past fifteen years. But this time it had been so different that he felt sure that even old, deaf Mister Jack would notice. This time it was incomplete, unfinished. The last part was missing. Billy had turned his head immediately, senses tuned to the lock. After a half-dozen heartbeats or so, he heard the last part of the sound. A small, soft clicking sound. It hadn't taken him long to experiment, listen, and work out exactly what had happened. The key turned the lock, which released a spring which in turn pushed the bolt into the hole. Only now, the spring was catching on something, because it wasn't releasing the bolt immediately. Lovely. And they hadn't noticed. Billy had thought about this for a long time. It could have been a trap, a snare set to catch the unwary.

Billy had waited two full weeks before deciding that it was safe. The day after they had rigged him up to the electric machine, when they considered him to be so docile that he had washroom privileges on his own, he had taken a washer off a loose tap in the washroom. With a strip of strong adhesive tape that had been wound around one of the broken legs of a wooden chair in the day-room, he attached the washer to a six-inch plastic ruler, stolen from the locker of one of the voluntaries some months back. Later that night, as Mister Jack turned his key, Billy had inserted the washer between the bolt and the hole and waited. It worked like a charm! The spring caught and the bolt jammed on his washer, leaving the door unlocked. He had almost let out a cry of relief and satisfaction.

Only now he had perfected the washer. Now he had more strips of strong tape, and he could come and go as he pleased. He had ventured out into the corridors and rooms on numerous occasions since then, increasing his store of secrets, discovering, uncovering, understanding. He formulated The Plan. It was an old plan really, part of the game that he had been playing for years, but now it grew and developed. The object of the game was for Billy to leave the hospital. Permanently. And now he had the means. While They still ruled the grey and white corridors by day, by night they belonged to him. He owned them. But he still had to be careful. These were dangerous days, and he still had to contend with the lidless watchers. And the mind probe. They called it E.C.T., Electro-Convulsive-Therapy. He called it the mind probe. The tall, flat-chested nurse called Josey rigged him up to the mains and tried to rip out his secrets. He had no way of knowing how much they had torn from him, no way of stopping the probe. He could only try and close his mind to the machine, stop himself thinking. His voices helped, but each time she gently stroked his temples, each and every time he convulsed and bit the rubber, he lost a part of himself. Oh yes, he still had to be careful. Nothing must slip. Not now.

And yet his little secrets grew and grew until the big plan was complete.

The matches had been a real coup. He had found them quite by accident, sniffing around in the staff toilet on one of his nightly sojourns. There, behind an old cistern, next to a crumpled cigarette packet, he found the matchbox. He wasn't interested in the peculiar trumpet-shaped, self-rolled cigarettes; only the matches.

Only the matches.

He didn't take them all. Not all in one go. Just one a month. One single match a month. They wouldn't miss just one match a month. Self-restraint. Control. The name of the game. The true nature of the game had grown in Billy's mind slowly. It didn't come to him suddenly, he had to work at it. Think about it. Hard. Eventually, he realised that they would all have to die. All of them. If they didn't they would know that he was gone. And they would look for him. He didn't want them looking for him. The Outside was theirs. It didn't belong to him. It was full of their secrets. To live in the Outside, he would need a secret. One secret. If they didn't know that he was Outside, that would do. That would be his secret. So they would all have to die.

'Well,' thought Billy, 'that's life. And we all know what life's in the midst of.' He scratched his nose. He scratched his nose often, in a slow, deliberate and methodically exact manner that he had made his own. Always in the same way. Sometimes he scratched so hard they had to treat the cuts with iodine. Once they had even taped gloves onto his hands to prevent the scratching. It wasn't obsessional, but that's what he wanted his doctors to think. It was one of his stock moves in the game. It was expected of him, and he didn't like to disappoint.

The hospital building itself was old. And isolated. The nearest village was over fifteen miles away. The hospital had been built in the late 18th century as the country retreat of a British landowner. It had been built by a lake, Timberlake, out in the wilds of Newfoundland. It had only three levels, but was squat and close to the ground as a protection from the incessant easterly winds. It was a large building, with over one hundred rooms. The State authorities had taken it over at the turn of the century and converted it into a hospital. They called it an Asylum. Timberlake Asylum. It was intended to house only fifty patients, culled from the most dangerous mentally defective criminals that the State considered too volatile even for prison. But Billy knew that there were around a hundred patients here now, divided among the three 'wings'.

All the staff lived in the hospital. He wasn't sure exactly how many, but he guessed at around thirty. A hundred patients and thirty staff. All to die. How the nature of the game changed and developed. 'It's a big game,' he thought. But Billy didn't write the rules. He just played the game. And he didn't intend to lose.

Billy stood and tucked his white T-shirt into his pants, adjusting the cord, pulling the waist tighter. He had lost some weight lately, not much, maybe only a pound, but he noticed. Playing the game wasn't easy. It took it out of you. Constantly being on your guard was a strain. Billy was thin. Not in a lithe or athletic way; he didn't have any muscles to speak of. He was just thin. And short. Insignificant. Looking the way he did had its disadvantages but Billy was philosophical on the matter. He didn't stand out in a crowd of two, and he liked it that way. Not that he considered himself weak. He knew that strength was all in the mind. Application. There had been a time when he had wished for bulging biceps, when he had longed to radiate the sort of presence that said, in no uncertain terms, 'Mess with me and I'll break your bloody neck.' But he had long ago come to terms with himself, to accept who and what he was, to cultivate other talents and concentrate on developing his intellect. Billy was aware of his body, but he ignored it. Knowledge is the key. It helps you play the game.

Back to the game. Final quarter.

Billy slowly turned the handle and pulled the door open, taking care to keep the washer tight up against the bolt. He took the strip of adhesive off the back of his hand and placed it over the bolt, tightly. He stuck his head around the corner. Nothing. Stepping out into the corridor, he gently closed the door behind him and squatted down, head tilted to one side.

He listened. Charlie was whimpering in his cell. The voluntaries were making their usual night-time sounds. All else was quiet.

It was the night before Christmas, and all around the house,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Billy made his way along the corridor toward the Nurse's Booth close to the large, locked and mesh-screened door that led to the first-floor balcony. He passed the dormitory that contained the voluntary patients. The mixed sound of people breathing masked his own controlled breaths. He moved past the washroom and day-room, keeping his back close to the wall but without touching. He reached the booth. It protruded into the dormitory, with a bay window that looked out over all the voluntaries. Control. Easing himself up, he peered into the room through the glass partition. Mister Jack was sitting on the staff couch, his legs crossed on the coffee table, back conveniently turned to the door. He was reading, but Billy could hear the faint sound of a radio-station playing old-style blues coming from the office. He looked around. By a shelf full of neatly stacked paperwork, six wooden pegs held sets of keys. A tray of medication lay by a microphone on the main desk, each plastic cup marked with a brightly coloured card. He knew that the blue one with the orange stripe was intended for him. He almost giggled.

Moving to the door, he was a little surprised to find that it was slightly open. But then, the catch had always been tricky, and Mister Jack could hardly slam the door at night, not so close to the dormitory; he wouldn't want to set the loonies off. Anything for a peaceful night.

He pushed gently, and the door swung silently open. He moved inside, closing the door nearly shut behind him. The old Negro didn't even stir in his chair, his feet tapping to the music, a magazine page corner nodding to the beat. On a low, white coffee table stained with tea-cup rings and yellowed with age, a half-bottle of whisky poked its head out of a wrinkled brown paper bag. The metal bottle-top lay on its side, lazily swinging to and fro in small semi-circles. It was difficult to tell how much was left in the bottle, but Billy knew that the old man liked his tipple. He had counted on it.

When it came to the game, Mister Jack was only a small-time player; he only knew the little moves, unconcerned with the broad strategic decisions. 'Perhaps,' thought Billy, 'he doesn't even know what the real rules are. Perhaps They hadn't told him.' Even so, They had pushed Mister Jack forward on the board, and Billy knew that he was a piece that had to be taken.

Ignorance, after all, is no excuse. Tut tut.

Billy moved into the office. So quietly, so slowly. Closing the office door carefully, he moved up close behind the seated man. He could almost taste the stale sweat and cigarette smoke mixed with the sweet tang of whisky that surrounded the old man like an unseen cloud.

Billy slowly raised the metal bed leg over his head, and brought it down heavily on the back of Mister Jack's balding head with a hollow crunch. A bright stream of red blood shot out toward him. He ducked sharply, and the blood splashed as it hit the wall. The old man grunted with pain as his feet jerked, sending magazines spraying to the floor. Billy pulled on the leg, but the metal corner was embedded in bone. Mister Jack kicked violently, knocking over the coffee table. The whisky bottle clattered to the floor. It didn't smash. Billy tugged harder, and the leg came away with a sucking sound. More blood. He raised it above his head and struck again. This time the body convulsed twice and lay still, eyes vacantly staring into space. Billy moved to the office door and listened. Behind him the radio continued, immune to the scene it had just witnessed and the sound of blood dripping onto the floor was almost in tune to the music. Outside in the dormitory, nothing stirred. Billy moved back into the room, and checked the contorted body for a pulse. Satisfied, he went over to the wall, making sure not to stand in the bright red pool by the chair and took Mister Jack's jacket from its peg. He reached for the light switch. Click. It paid to be careful. He put the faded brown jacket on. Wiping the metal leg on the back of the couch, he took a bunch of keys and closed the office door. Glancing through the glass partition into the dormitory, he left the booth and made his way along the corridor to the large screened door that led out onto the balcony above the main hall.

Quiet as a mouse. Almost sinfully silent.

Reaching the metal screen, he unlocked the padlock and withdrew the restraining bolt. The door beyond was unlocked and opened easily with only a slight squeak, but nobody heard. He passed through, closed and locked it. Squeak. Click. He was now on the wide, rectangular balcony above the main entrance. Old, cracked oil paintings hung on dark oak panelled walls and the wide staircase that coiled down to the ground floor was lined with intricately carved banister rails, like small branches, complete with leaves and acorns, some smooth and polished with the use of ages and others as fresh and vital as if newly fashioned. From the balcony, two more doors led to other wards and a third to the staff quarters and medicine room. Below, in the gloom of the vast hall, a faint light shone from the reception desk, casting a reluctant light over the vast mosaic of Eden spread over the floor. But no-one was about. They were not expecting visitors. Billy looked down, past the desk towards the big main doors. Large, almost twice the height of a man, the dark oak doors stood sentinel guard over the asylum. Almost black with age, the carved images of cherubs and angels, stained with time, looked like blood-soaked demons and the leafy trees like the fires of Hades itself. The doors dominated the vast hall with their sheer immensity:

THOU SHALT NOT PASS.

Wide-eyed, Billy stared over his sagging shoulder at the doors. Brooding. Threatening. His eyes dimmed and misted. For a moment he was lost. Naked. Alone.

He saw himself all those years ago, handcuffed to two brown, mackintosh-clad policemen, standing in the open doorway; wind blowing dry autumn leaves over the wide floor. He saw himself as he then was. For a moment he stood, clutching at the banister, as the holes in his life, so carefully concealed and patched, were agonisingly ripped open by the fetid and stagnant floodwaters of his past.

There, in the doorway he slumped, chained to his persecutors, bent and broken; sobbing uncontrollably into his sleeve. There, behind the desk, sat the fat nurse; already flirting with his captors, bleached hair curling and bouncing about her red cheeks. There, in the arched porch, struggled the bald doctor; fighting in vain against the terrible gale to close the heavy oak doors, coat-tails snapping like a mocking applause. There, by the huge black telephone, fumbled the short policeman; dropping his keys as the frightened and confused sparrow blew in through the open door and struck the hanging chandelier. There, in Eve's outstretched hand, lay the sparrow; injured and dying among fragments of smashed crystal. And there he was, half-kneeling, half-hanging by his chains from the cigar-smoking policeman, face smeared with dirt and tears. Scarred, shattered and abandoned as a hilltop tree split by lightning; unloved and feared. Almost lifeless.

The memory, although only a faint echo in his personal darkness, pierced him like a needle. Guilt and pain, shame and humiliation, anger and fear. He closed his eyes. Tight.

A solitary bead of blood edged past his teeth as he bit deep into the soft flesh of his bottom lip. The sharp pain half-swept the memories and self-pity away, but not completely. Dimly aware that he stood on some kind of emotional knife-edge, Billy concentrated hard. And listened.

Like a train in the distance, or an approaching gale, they started quietly, on the very edge of silence from which they took shape and form and grew. Louder and louder until the confused whispering became clear, articulated words. The words of his voices, congratulating, complementing, motivating, manipulating, enticing and exhorting him on. Ever onwards. Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. The tide of them washed over him and cleansed like fire the regret that welled from within. He leant heavily on the banister, shoulders shaking with emotion as the Voices smothered like a fog the rampant and self-destructive flood of feelings. Helpless and dazed, he could only stand and witness the conflict within him, watch as the battle raged to and fro. No control.

Only when it was over, and he was again alone, did he re-open his eyes. Scrubbed clean, he straightened, turned, and walked slowly towards the stairs.

Now it was over. Restoration. Now he was himself.

The bare, polished steps creaked slightly, even under Billy's light weight, but there was no-one there to hear, no-one to intrude. Even so, as he descended, he kept his senses sharp and his eyes on the main doors. It was strange, but despite his confidence, despite his faith in his game plan and his intimate knowledge, Billy half expected some gun-toting officer of the law to come crashing through the doors and interfere. Billy would never have described himself as a superstitious type, but as he slowly made his way past the gilt-framed dark oil landscapes towards the Garden of Eden, he began to oddly reassure himself that lightning never strikes twice. That he needed reassuring he found disconcerting.

'Just nervous I guess,' he thought. 'Understandable in the circumstances.'

Thus forgiven, he reached the ground floor and paused. To his right, the great double doors stood silent, locked and solid. His eyes caught the thin trail of grey wire traced, like a spider's thread, around the doors and off into the obscurity of the vaulted ceiling. More evidence of the power to control and dominate of his electric foe; the alarm system. Recently fitted, it encased the hospital in it's all-encompassing, constantly moving and ever-alert current. 'How nice,' he thought, 'how very thoughtful.'

When Billy had first heard of the alarm system, the day the little Chinese man in the white overalls had come to fit it, he had been a little perturbed to say the least. This wasn't just another snare, this had the capacity to seriously alter his game plan. He watched as the friendly man, somewhat nervous of the environment, went about his business, saw how he connected every window to the current, every latch to the mains. Closing off all the exits. Fifteen miles from the nearest village, isolated and ignored, he was left in no doubt as to the true object of all this concern.

For a while he imagined that They had discovered his plan, overheard his voices perhaps, but he soon dismissed this as paranoia on his behalf, and settled on the obvious fact that the opposite was true. Unable to determine his plan, they were wildly flailing about and were simply trying to narrow his alternatives; castling the King. They were enveloping the hospital in a veil of current, constructing a prison of electricity more effective than any iron cage; constantly vigilant, perpetually active, never sleeping.

Initially, the alarm appeared to suspend if not wholly prevent Billy's planned escape. Yet, as he came to understand and observe, he realised that, for once, that they may have made an error. They didn't understand human nature as Billy did. They were far too concerned with tools.

The grey wires and contacts that were now an integral part of the hospital's skeleton, converged by a series of ill-concealed spinal conduits to the cerebral cortex itself; a small control board by the reception desk in the main hall. From then on, the system relied on the fat nurse or the night porter. And being human, they were manifestly unreliable. Sleep, boredom and the ubiquitous call of nature could all upset the system. And all of these things were part of a person's natural daily rhythm and routine. Such rhythms and routines could be learned, especially by a person with Billy's expertise on such matters. Although this line of reasoning cheered Billy no end, he could still foresee difficulties; getting enough access to the desk area to be able to observe and learn was an obvious one, and not an easy problem to overcome. So Billy didn't get carried away; he kept his head and his perspective.

Then it finally dawned on him. It was so simple. An event. A birthday. New Year's Eve. Christmas Eve. When the staff would throw a party in the basement swimming pool and water-therapy hall. When alcohol was flowing and all thoughts were far removed from the loonies upstairs. When the cortex was unplugged or left untended. So simple.

The Garden of Eden was cold and hard as Billy padded barefoot across the tiles towards the narrow corridor that led to the storage basement. A large white enamel sign, screwed into the beam above the corridor proclaimed, in bright red capital letters;

STAFF ONLY

The low ceiling of the panelled corridor was somewhat oppressive after the vastness and air of the main hall. Billy counted the doors. One. Two. Ahead, at the far end of the passage stood the door that led to the basement pool. Three. Four. The first sounds of laughter and loud conversation drifted toward him. He stopped momentarily and listened. A splash. Singing. He continued. Five. Six. The sixth door. Composed and sure, he reached for the shiny, round brass handle and turned. It was unlocked, as he had known it would be. The door opened with a low, cracked complaining whine. He closed it slowly behind him, just to be on the safe side.

Instantly muted by the thickness of the door, the sounds of unconcerned happiness became mere muzak as Billy stood silently at the head of the basement steps. His eyes soon became accustomed to the dim red light cast from below. Carefully, he descended the old stairs, ducking his head to avoid the low beams. He counted. Twenty steps and he was down.

Before him stood the furnace and boiler, ancient and venerable, almost completely surrounded by pipes and water tanks. He touched it, enjoying its warmth and strength. Much older than he, the boiler had stood in this basement for over a hundred years, long before electricity had made its debut in Timberlake. It was wood or coal powered, and the wide bunkers and tall wood pile behind him were evidence as to its voracious appetite. Through a small glass plate, a deep scarlet glow from the embers cast long shadows into the basement. He peered inside, amazed at the size of the beast's belly and the complexity of its myriad entrails feeding heat to almost every room in the hospital. He patted it, in an almost brotherly manner.

Turning, he moved deeper into the basement, away from the furnace. To his left a shallow stone ramp led up towards the low, slanted outer door; linked to the current and out of bounds. To his right, a series of wide, free-standing shelves full of paint tins and boxes and tools stood amidst the debris of years of absent-minded tinkering; sawdust, shavings and shards of wood, small pools of dark, dried, spattered paint. Beyond, in the ruby gloom, the workroom, abandoned and full of rubbish collected from decades of hospital life. And there, in front of him, by the far wall, next to the empty tea-chests, the three large paraffin tanks.

When he had first been drawn to this basement (probably by the smell, which permeated even to the main hall), Billy had spent some time exploring and investigating and had failed to spot the paraffin tanks until near the end of his self-allotted time. And despite wishing, he was unable to re-enter and fully examine the tanks until Friday last week. Only then did he discover that the tanks were virtually full. Only then was he able to incorporate them into his game plan. Only then was the final piece available.

The following day, Billy had looked out of his window and into the wintry afternoon for the first time in the sure knowledge that he would soon be making his way, unseen, past the large willow tree and the pond to the outer wall by Bob Brandt's cottage. His eyes had traced his intended path countless times that afternoon. Two opportunities existed; he had overheard Mister Jack talking about the staff parties planned for both Christmas and New Year's Eve. Christmas Eve was the sooner, and it presented him with the pleasure of Mister Jack's demise as an aperitif, besides; they planned to allow the loonies to stay up to see in the new year, and some were bound to get over-excited and keep the staff busy all night. Christmas Eve would have to do.

Billy had eaten little that day, consumed as he was by final preparations. He had found it difficult to contain his enthusiasm and maintain his concentration. He knew of only four exits from the building; the main doors, a back entrance near the kitchen, another by the wood store in the basement and an upstairs fire-escape leading from the balcony area. All the first and second floor windows were shuttered and locked, and he had seen that the ground floor windows were barred from the outside, even the doctor's offices. There were no doors or windows to the outside from the basement pool, the place they always held their parties, so all Billy had to do was block off the main hall and balcony, and that would be that. No exits. No exits but one, whose existence was a fact known only to Billy; the last of his little secrets.

They would be trapped and helpless and his to do with as he pleased and it would please him very much if they were all to die.

Billy filled two two-gallon containers with the scented, pink fluid and lifted them over to the stairs. It was an old building, made entirely of wood, ancient and dry. It wouldn't take much to burn. 'It's always much easier to destroy a thing than build a thing,' he thought as he climbed the steps, 'that's a human truth.'

Leaving one of the containers near the door at the top of the basement steps, he listened for a moment before opening the door and making his way back along the corridor. The paraffin sloshed and gurgled in the container as he moved quickly across the hall and up the stairs to the balcony. Taking care not to splash himself too much, he left a pungent trail of doom that wound around the balcony. He took his time. Methodical and sure, he didn't miss anything. Small trails leading to the store-rooms, blocking the fire-escape; tiny puddles of death by every door and window. He soaked the thread-bare carpet at the top of the stairs and, descending, marked each step with its own pool. He criss-crossed Eden with a liquid lattice and lavishly anointed the main doors with fiery fluid. His task almost complete, Billy returned to the basement door for the second container. Hand on handle he froze as the door to the pool-room opened.

The corridor was dark, but there, in the open doorway stood the unmistakable silhouette of the tall flat-chested nurse. She was laughing, and evidently grossly intoxicated. She closed the door, leaning heavily against the wall, accidentally knocking askew a brightly coloured Chinese print. She giggled and coughed, brown liquid spilling over the edge of her brandy glass and splashing onto the carpet. She pulled a face as her nose caught the faint smell of paraffin, but her muddled brain had more urgent concerns.

Josephine Walker had always wanted to be a nurse, ever since her sixth birthday when Nanna Berthier made a gift of a toy stethoscope. Josey was a natural; she really cared. She had a friendly, easy-going manner and a strong personality. Two years ago, when she completed her training, she had taken the decision to specialise in mental health. Her position at Timberlake was prestigious. Everyone had been proud of the achievement. Here she could make a difference; here she could really help. They had all said so. She was young. She was good.

What is more important, at the moment, she was dying for a pee.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a brief movement, a dark blur. Maybe it was Francis, the dishy orderly from 'A' wing. She responded sluggishly by jerking her head up and spitting out a name,

"Franthith?"

'That didn't come out right,' she thought, 'Sounded all wrong somehow.' If only she hadn't drunk quite so much. She always drank too much lately. She stumbled heavily in her five-inch heels as she leant against the suddenly and inexplicably non-existent door and fell through a solid opening that wasn't actually there. In utter and total confusion, she staggered, colliding with someone or something on the top of the stairs, her own personal horizon careering wildly up and down her flailing perception. The someone or something appeared to move and she was vaguely aware that perhaps now would be a good time to stand still.

She thought to grab it, whatever it was, but her reaction was far, far too late and she was past the third step before her arms moved in response. Her legs bent and buckled beneath her as she crashed and fell down the basement stairs, left arm breaking in two places before she reached the bottom, collar and cheek-bone fracturing with the impact, lungs pierced by cracked ribs.

Billy stood at the top of the stairs in stunned silence. He had had the foresight to close the door after the tall nurse had fallen through, but could only watch in disbelief as she arched gracefully through the air, collided violently with the basement steps and crunched into the floor. The silence that followed was broken by the shattering of the brandy glass, which she had miraculously held onto, virtually all the way down. The sound of the smashing glass shocked Billy into action.

That had been too close. Now there was no time to lose. The nurse would soon be missed. Taking the second container, Billy moved up and down the corridor, bathing and soaking the floor and walls along its entire length, making sure that the carpet was sodden, particularly near the pool-room door. Only he would escape.

Closing the basement door behind him, he left a fine, unbroken trail of glistening paraffin following him down the steps, over and around the still-breathing, twisted body of the nurse, along the floor and up to the wall by the tea-chests. Moving the top-most chest aside, he uncovered a small, narrow and grimy window; his secret window. Climbing onto a barrel, he reached up and slid back the bolts that he had oiled on his previous visit. With a push, the window opened.

Billy turned carefully and listened. Only the broken and rasping breathing of the nurse spoilt the effect. All else was silent. Waiting for the denouement.

Billy climbed and squeezed through the window and out beneath the wide eucalyptus bush that masked and hid the small opening from prying eyes. He scrambled and turned under the strongly scented leaves, reached into his canvas trousers and withdrew his matches. Intensely savouring the sweetness of the moment, the supreme event, Billy struck the match.

Blossom and Grow. Birth and life. There, in his hand. Flame.

For a second, closing his eyes, he committed it all to memory. Triumphantly, he dropped the match. Crump. A blast of hot air swept his face as the paraffin ignited. An immensity of flame raced across the floor as Billy scrambled through the bush and ran.


Christmas Day 1980

The night cried no tears as Timberlake Asylum burned.

The paraffin burst alive with green flame and death weaved its destructive path throughout the corridors and passageways. Wood crackled, metal warped and plastic seethed and spat. And there was no escape. The building became a furnace for the damned, an Olympian conflagration.

The door to the basement pool caught and erupted as the paraffin-soaked wood was eaten to the core by the flame. Flames shot upward towards the dry wooden beams of the ceiling. Smoke and fumes filled the air. So fast. One junior doctor, wrapping himself in a water-soaked coat, managed to make his way through the burning doorway and out into the corridor beyond. Others leaped into the pool. The room was a mass of burning and suffocating bodies; screaming, terrified bodies. The wooden rafters cracked and collapsed into the pool, crushing and drowning, sending huge gouts of boiling steam into the air.

The junior doctor, lungs seared and scorched with fiery sparks and cinders, succumbed to smoke in the main hall and fell in a cloud of flames. Around him, helpless, ancient portraits looked on impassively; blistering and popping. Flames engulfed the large door. Heat surged like a wave, blowing and igniting loose paper on the reception desk. The staircase crackled, roared and collapsed in an orgy of flame and sound. Eden burned.

Upstairs, on the wards, the horror was complete. Those patients locked in their cells had no escape, but were dead from suffocation before the flames consumed the doors and ate their bodies. But the voluntaries on the open ward, confused and howling, threw themselves at the window shutters, tried to batter their way through with the bodies of those already dead. One man, hair and clothes ablaze, squealed and wept in a corner; his first sounds in over forty years. And his last. In the holocaust on the wards, they spent their final moments in a blind, choking panic, skin blistering and erupting with heat, fingernails breaking on padlocks. On ward B, the night orderly, hands seared and charred, managed to unlock the metal screen only to fall screaming as the floor gave way sending the entire ward collapsing down into the offices below. Behind him, the glass of the windows shattered outward and for the first time, smoke and burning sparks of scorched wood billowed out into the night. At thirteen minutes past midnight, the reserve gas boiler in the attic erupted in a ball of blue flame, bursting the oil tanks and sending rivulets of flaming liquid below, into the catastrophic inferno of the wards. The force of the blast sent one of the voluntaries hurtling through the air, streaming flames behind her, to land by the roadside beyond the grounds; to lie burning and spitting on the tarmac, broken and crushed. Metal groaned, bent and melted and wood ignited with the sheer heat from the flames. Mattresses exploded, sending feathers into the air, to ignite and float insanely in the heat currents spiralling upward.

All within were dead well before the roof fell inward, creaking and groaning, crushing and cremating. Outside, the forest danced in the fiery light. At about twenty minutes past midnight, the petrol store in the grounds exploded. The force of the blast flattened the surrounding trees for over a hundred yards and sent shards of glass and splinters of wood hurtling through the night to embed themselves in the trees and grass.

When the police arrived an hour later, the heat from the blaze prevented their entrance into the asylum grounds. They stood on the road in mute silence and horror as the small convoy of trucks and vans arrived from the village bearing a morbid audience, stunned and amazed. And still the fire burned, still the flames devoured.

The pyre was smouldering still when the coroner arrived to poke over the remains on New Year's Day.

Silence and dark. Peace and death.


October 1992

"It's dead and buried," she said, "leave it. Let it lie."

The woman moved from room to room like a big cat; a lioness maybe, or a puma. It wasn't just her manner, sure-footed, confident, nor her clothes, which managed to flow without form. It was as natural as honey. Smooth, slow and fluid; no rush, no stress. Anne had always had a certain indefinable grace, even as a child. When all the other children passed through cute into gangly, she had managed, through no deliberate art, to laze straight into graceful. Some said it reflected her superior attitude to others, but this was, as is often the case, just sour grapes. Or plain jealousy. She was aware of it, and had, in her youth, attempted to change it. It had its disadvantages. But now, at her age, she didn't give a damn.

Today however, such grace took concentration.

She carried the coffee cups down the long hall toward the living-room where her daughter waited. A large ginger tabby mewed quietly by the back door; it wanted out. Anne frowned and placed the cups on a nearby hall table. The air was cool and fresh, and the scent of pine drifted into the hall as she opened the door. The tabby lazily meandered onto the porch, giving only a cursory and derisive glance across the lawn towards the dustbins, where a solitary, grey-striped racoon scavenged noisily. Anne closed the door, ignoring the racoon; ignoring the mess. This was unusual. Anyone who knew her intimately would have noticed that something was not quite right with Anne today. A hair was most definitely out of place. She lifted the cups and took a deep breath before entering the room. She had been gone almost ten minutes, but the ploy failed: Christine, her daughter, was ready.

"For god's sake mother. Don't you understand? He was my father. My father. Can't you see? You've hidden it for all of these years. It's important to me. Something I have to know."

Anne looked across at her daughter and the first sign of tears appeared in her eyes. Damn! She sat on the leather sofa, slowly; clinging to the last vestiges of self-control. Why? After all this time? Why is this suddenly so important? Why now? Christine rose from the dining chair and looked out of the window.

"Something I have to know," she said

Christine Kelley was twenty-eight years old, Married. Divorced. No children. No comment. She resembled her mother, especially around the eyes and mouth, but she didn't have her mother's personality. Everyone said so. Where Anne was restrained, Christine was impatient. Where her mother was conciliatory, she was stubborn. Fiery, her ex-husband had said. Too much so, he had thought. Too many thorns, like a rose. She knew it too. She had married straight out of high-school to her childhood sweetheart. It hadn't worked, virtually from the first day, but she would be damned if she wouldn't give it a try. For almost three years she had tried. It hadn't been easy, but that would have been too much to ask. Life wasn't easy. But she would have settled for tolerable, and, at best, that's what she got. Daniel, her husband, her ex-husband, considered her his intellectual inferior. Deep, meaningful conversations were therefore out of the question. 'You have opinions,' he used to say, 'and have every right in the world to express them. I, on the other hand, have knowledge. There's a world of difference. Try reading Plato sometime and you'll see what I mean.'

Patronising creep. Still, she had been financially secure. Nice house. Nice car. But no romance. She had read Plato, and she had understood. But, being practically minded, she had made a bargain with herself: stick it, it might get better. She could certainly have been happy with better. But the bell finally tolled when she caught him passing the spark of knowledge to one of his attractive, leggy, bra-less students in a manner that Plato would most definitely have frowned upon. That was not part of her bargain. Intolerable was a no-no.

After the divorce, she rented a small apartment in Kitsilano and enrolled as a student at U.B.C. Creative Writing. Why not? She'd always had a knack with words. The written kind, that is. It was to be the start of what she called her 'New Life'. Life without Creep. About time. She made a little extra cash working part-time at a credit agency, and her mother helped out; gladly. When it came down to it, as Christine privately acknowledged, she owed her mother a great deal. She had always been there for her. The love between them was warm and genuine. They were true friends. They talked about everything, went out frequently, consulted and discussed together. Tied by more than the bonds of family, nothing stood between them. Nothing except this; her father.

Outside, in the early morning sunlight, the conifers rustled in the breeze. The deep sienna richness of the trees and shrubs contrasted sharply with the bright green of the lawn; all glistening with the overnight rain. The sky was crisp and clear, with the last rain clouds far to the South over the mountains and the high cirrus remnants resembling aerial sand dunes. The house was built into the hillside, near the top, with a generous garden both front and back and a rear-facing view over downtown Vancouver. Centrally isolated. Christine loved Vancouver; a city still exuberant in its youthfulness. She thought it combined the best of America and Canada with a metropolitan vibrancy that was simply unique. All this and with a backdrop of untarnished natural beauty to boot.

She still saw it all with a child's eyes, ignoring the depravity behind the advertising hoardings, unconsciously flicking aside the harshness of other people's lives, concentrating on the sheer spectacle of the snow-capped mountains, the eeriness of the misty islets and the sheer splendour of the forests. Naive. Romantic. Idealistic. Impractical. With Christine it was none of these things; she simply believed in appreciating life. If Creep had taught her anything, it was that everyone needs to escape sometimes.

Today, as she looked out over the trees and houses, as her eyes were drawn towards the city and the snow-capped mountains, she thought about the unfairness of life and the cruelty of fate. All this beauty, all these feelings. And a hole that couldn't be filled. She missed a life that could have been; a guessed-at world of imagination and make-believe. She missed her father.

It's dead and buried. Leave it, let it lie.

If only it was quite that simple, if only it had ever been quite that simple. And now here she was, a grown woman; mature, responsible and aware, acting like a petulant kid unable to persuade mummy to buy sweets. She knew it was more than a touchy subject; knew also that she was being selfish. Aware that she was hurting her mother. But hell, she needed something and this wasn't easy for her either. She rubbed her temples.

Anne's eyes followed her daughter's every tense movement, trying to determine the best approach. This could be rough. Waves of past memories, memories covered in the dust of abandoned years, reared from the ashes of the past and perched anew in her consciousness; almost mocking. She could hear His voice, harsh and cracked with hate, borne on the winds of her memory;

You'll always be a part of me, Anne; always be my Old Flame.

'Old Flame. God damn him!' Her gaze fell to the carpet. 'I don't want to go through this again', she thought, 'not now. It's so pointless'. And yet when she looked at her daughter, gazing through the window, she could see the need on her face.

Perhaps if they confronted it together, it would help both of them. There had been times lately when she couldn't look her daughter straight in the eye; times when she pulled away, afraid that intimacy would open a path to questions that she feared to answer. Christine was the dearest thing she had, the one true love in her life. She couldn't bear to lose her. If only,... if only she knew how Christine would react, how she would respond. And then, how much to tell? She knew that once started, nothing would or could be hidden. No matter how much she told herself that she was overreacting (after all He had been ill, everyone had said so; it had been obvious), she had always tried to protect her daughter from unnecessary pain. But perhaps this pain was necessary. Realising that she was crying, Anne wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand and briefly considered reaching for her coffee-cup; dismissing the idea. It would only add to the drama if the cup rattled with her shaking hands.

"Chris," she said, "there's a lot you don't know, a lot you haven't been told. I had hoped that you need never know. Perhaps that was wrong. You can only do what you think best. Maybe you are right after all, and if we get it out in the open, I may finally be rid of him." She paused and looked up, "God knows how much I long to be rid of him."

Christine moved away from the window and sat beside her mother, strangely apprehensive. 'Right,' she thought, 'it's about time.'

Push had finally come to shove.

They had rarely spoken about Him. Once, when Chris was nine years old, it had occurred to her that she should have had a father. After all, all her friends had one. Aunt Joyce (a close friend of her mothers and not a relative by blood) had once said that her father had died in an accident when Christine was very young and added that she really should not pester her mother about it as she might get upset because she loved him a lot. Christine remembered every word of that conversation, even now, but it had meant very little to her at the time. Anne had always remained silent, had never offered any explanation. Christine had done all the running.

But, when she was nine, she had broached the subject with Anne with as much tact as she could muster for one of such tender years. Looking back, it was actually quite laughable. In those days, Christine was still in the habit of sleeping in her mother's bed and one night she moved in close and cuddled tight, wriggling her toes against the back of Anne's legs in her own special way that made her mother laugh. Then she had said it: 'Mother, why did my father have to die?' A classic. She remembered feeling her mother tense and she remembered her quiet, soft, almost whispered answer; 'Because that's the way that God intended.' Anne had turned away and cried into her pillow. Christine had felt the mattress jump a little, occasionally, but there had been no sound and no solace for either. She had felt too guilty to comfort Anne, and that guilt stayed with her a long time.

Because that's the way that God intended.

It took a long time for her to exorcise that guilt and climb the wall. But one wet September afternoon when Christine was fifteen and with nothing to do, she had scrambled into the small, cramped and very dusty space above the small apartment in Richmond that passed for an attic. It was damp and humid and her T-shirt soon became speckled with sweat and dust. She had not known why she was up there, she wasn't looking for anything in particular, just poking around in boxes and crates of old toys; eyeless dolls and dog-eared scrapbooks. She remembered seeing old school reports, all saying the same thing;

Christine is a clever girl, with plenty of potential, particularly in creative areas, but her abilities are limited in those subjects in which she places little importance, and she would be wise to widen her understanding somewhat and remember that Mathematics IS relevant in today's society. In those subjects in which she does express interest, she excels. These attitudes are evident in her grade averages. Christine has undoubted ability, and is only restricted by her own views and opinions.

After a while the small area had become so humid that the dust became dirt, and smeared to the touch. She had lifted an old, red velvet dress, it's white lace edging limp, frayed and yellow with age She had held it up and smiled as she toyed with the idea of washing it and wearing it to amuse her mother. And then her eyes had caught a small brown leather vanity case. It had been covered by the dress and was relatively free from dust, but the ornate silver clasps were discoloured and the tan leather stained with dark brown smudges of damp. It smelt fusty. Laying the dress aside, she had turned her attention to the case. On the top, in the centre, it bore her mother's initials in a flowing Gothic script; A.K. Above these were the initials E.K., which she had taken to be those of her grandmother, Eunice Kelley. She stroked her grimy fingers over the initials, bringing photograph images of her grandmother into focus in her mind's eye. Yet another that had died before Christine was born. Another aching loss and deep regret. It had saddened her.

She had lifted the lid, surprised to find that it came off completely, the hinges broken sometime in the past. Inside was a pot pourri of memorabilia from her mother's life. It had fascinated her. But more than the old black and white photographs and spider-script letters, one faded piece of paper had caught her attention. It had been, at some time, crumpled into a ball, but later straightened out, neatly folded and pressed flat. Her fingers had delicately opened and unfolded the paper square with a surgeon's care and precision until it lay open, a cracked and blurred window onto the past; her mother's marriage certificate. Her eyes had frantically sought out the details that she yearned for. She had been surprised to find that tears clouded her vision. There it lay. Amazing that she had never been told even this; her father's name. Amazing that she had never asked:

HUSBAND: WILLIAM SALDEK.

She had kept this knowledge to herself and told no-one; some faint thread of intimacy with her father, perhaps. Now she had a link, small and tenuous, but real. Now there was a man in her dreams, in her sub-conscious; a man with a name. In the beginning he looked like Cary Grant, or James Stewart. Then Marlon Brando. Now Martin Sheen. She found herself touching, almost caressing her mother's old furniture, wondering if he had touched it himself. In the world of her private imaginings, they grew closer. She created a world in which she sat on his lap and stroked his stubbled chin, a world in which they laughed and played and in which his pride in her knew no limits, but in which there was no comfort, no joy. She knew that this was only make-believe, and yet, over the years it had opened a rift between Anne and herself, a void of resentment and guilt; undeserved and unwelcome.

Anne took a long, deep breath, and reached for her coffee, pleased that her hands had stopped shaking. She took a sip.

"Your father," she said, "was a very complex man, Chris. In the beginning he was kind and intelligent. Peaceful, but humorous. I think I loved him almost immediately. He seemed shy and insecure, yet he trusted me. But he was ill. In his head he was ill. He didn't know it, and really it wasn't his fault. The doctors said that he was a schizophrenic. But that was after. At first, before you were born, he seemed fine."

Christine winced.

Before you were born he seemed fine.

In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth.


July 1948

Wind in the trees, sun shining, water glistening, dogs barking. And then the call.

"Billy! Come in here. Now!"

The young woman on the porch stooped to lift a scraggy cat off a basket of wet clothes, her ample bosom pulling at the virtually non-existent restraints of her green T-shirt, drawing appreciative whistles from the two men lounging in the garden next door. Smiling, she turned and bent over in a theatrically absurd manner; knees straight, pulling the fabric of her short denim skirt higher, and tighter, revealing her white underwear. She was rewarded with a gasp and wide-eyed adoration. Lovely. She liked an audience.

At the end of the lawn, untended and overgrown, littered with rubbish and car innards, behind the rotting wooden shed, stood a wide and tall maple tree, full and leafy. Embraced within its strong branches and almost surrounded by vivid and vibrant greenery, a young boy sat and watched. Legs astride a thick branch, his unshod feet, brown and callused, dangled beneath him. He held his breath and waited for his mother to go inside. He was embarrassed by her, yes, but his shame was not for her. From his vantage point in the tree he could look down into the bushes where his older brother hid and secretly spied on their mother. He had seen Wolfy stare at her nakedness in the bathroom, heard his disgusting mutterings at night while masturbating. He knew enough to be ashamed. More than enough. Because he knew she liked it. At night, when his father was away with the company, with Wolfy absent from their shared bedroom, he knew enough to recognise the grunts and moans from his mother's room for what they really were. He might be young, but he knew.

"Billy, I know you can hear me. Come here right now!" Billy's mother huffed on the porch and disappeared inside, slamming the screen behind her. In the garden next door, Mr. Dejeaux and his son resumed their work, laughing together, glancing occasionally, hopefully, at the porch. The hot summer sun beat down upon the parched lawn in waves of dry heat. Wolfy crept out of the bushes, and walked slowly towards the house. Suddenly, the dark-haired boy turned and looked up at the tree. Almost hidden by the burdened branches, Billy flinched and tensed, keeping still against the rough bark. Below, Wolfy grinned, reached into his back pocket and shuffled off to light a fire from the hedge cuttings. Sunlight sparkled on Wolfy's silver lighter. Billy let out a deep breath. Wiping his face on his sleeve, he looked out over the house tops towards Toronto, thankful for the space and the open, heat-shimmering horizon.

Around five o'clock, he was disturbed by the rattling sound of his father's truck as it turned into the avenue and up the rough path to the house. It was a steep climb, and the old truck noisily complained as his father cycled down through the gears, always one too early. Wolfy appeared on the porch, a grim smile half-visible on his sullen face. Nadia, his mother, stood behind him. She had changed her clothes, and the unstained, pure white summer dress billowed in the breeze. Billy climbed down from the tree, reaching the bottom as the truck coughed to a standstill. He ran towards the house.

"Oh, and now he turns up," said his mother, "stomach in full-working order, but ears as deaf as a post." She cuffed him as he sped past and the overpowering cloud of her perfume almost made him gag. "Answer me next time,..." she said, "or I'll have that tree cut down."

Billy rushed through the narrow corridor to the kitchen, mouth watering in anticipation at the scent of cooking. By the open kitchen door, a frail, pale-looking baby gurgled gently in a wooden cot. Billy screwed his face up at the child and she rewarded him with a wide, slant-mouthed and dribbly baby smile. He had just managed to wash his face and hands and reach his seat when his father entered.

"Let us eat," he commanded, sitting at the head of the table. Werner, alone in the Saldek family, retained a strong accent from the old country. The guttural Austrian consonants added authority to his voice. They sat. They thanked God for the food on the table. They ate, as always, in silence and observed the almost paganistic rituals of the table with precision. Peas on the back of the fork, elbows off the table and never take the last piece of bread. Billy knew the rules.

Later, in the warm twilight, Billy lay in the cramped space under the house and listened. This was one of his secret places, and he had made it as comfortable as he could. Stretched out on his stomach on an old cot-mattress, he spent hours under here, listening, and watching through a small, purpose-built hole in the wood under the front porch steps. From here, and from his tree, he saw and heard a great deal that he wasn't supposed to. Sometimes he would skip school and spend whole days hidden under the house, listening. But he liked it best in winter, when the thunder rolled and lightning spat out from a blackened sky. With the heavy rain falling, he felt secure in the knowledge that the entire house stood between himself and the elements. And as for the arguments, he didn't like them much, but he listened just the same. Like now. Billy turned onto his back. Bitter words dripped onto him from above. It was an old and predictable argument, with an old and predictable ending;

"I've seen the looks they give you." It was his father's voice, slurred as always with alcohol and rage.

"I can't help the way they look," his mother replied, "besides, it's more than you ever do any more. And we all know why don't we?"

"Shut up," his father warned. But mom had the knives out now.

"With your city whores to keep you company," she said. "Only a whore would have you." Her voice could be venomous when she wanted, but this time he only laughed.

"Not this one though!", he said. "Oh no! And you; the biggest whore in town! You're no bloody different. Cow!"

"Bastard!" Nadia hissed. The boards creaked. Billy knew what was coming, and from the sound of running feet, so did his mother. She screamed. Billy covered his ears, but heard his father's hand strike all the same, and he heard the cry of pain from his mother. Silence. He removed his hands from his ears. Werner marched to the door, slammed it and thumped down the wooden steps. Billy turned over and peered through his hole. Two legs stalked angrily away from the house. Above him, the soft, gentle voice of his mother drifted down;

"You'll pay for that, you bastard," she sobbed. Billy agreed. He knew his mother's little tricks; had seen her put strong laxative in his coffee and heard his curses as he stumbled to the toilet, invariably locked and occupied by his mother with her uncanny sense of timing.

Billy stared into his mattress, face blank and unmoving; thinking. He loved neither his father nor his mother. At least he didn't think so. But he hated the constant arguments. It was a relief when his father went off with the company, logging in the mountains for weeks at a time, but even then there were other problems. Billy shifted uncomfortably and almost cried aloud with surprise as he caught sight of Wolfy's sneering face peering at him out of the darkness.

"Time to play, Billy," said Wolfy, "time to say hello to the Demons."

Billy closed his eyes. "But Wolfy, please,..." His voice quivered and wavered.

"Now shush. Don't plead. You know we don't plead. Give me your hand and come on out." Wolfy reached and took firm hold of Billy's shaking hand. He dragged him from beneath the house.

"Not now Wolfy, please. I don't like the Demons, they hurt. Father,..."

"He's gone," hissed Wolfy, "so be quiet. He's an arsehole anyway, a total wanker. Hey, this is going to be an important night for you Billy, very important. I think you'll agree. So stop pulling and stand up. Come on." Hand in hand they walked across the lawn towards the dilapidated wooden shed, the older boy smiling constantly.

"I don't want to go into the pit Wolfy, please,..."

"Don't plead. I said don't plead and by Christ, I mean it. Do it again and I shall kick you in the head, do you understand?" Billy stopped struggling.

"Yes Wolfy, I understand," he said.

"You know you must face the Demons don't you?" continued Wolfy.

"But they hurt,..." Billy was crying now. They had reached the old wooden shed.

"Of course they hurt. They have to. They are the Demons. It's only right. But they will help you Billy. They will help you get what you want. If you accept them, they will always be your friend." Wolfy opened the creaking door. They stepped inside. Under a hidden trapdoor on the junk-strewn floor, a home-made rung-ladder led down into the dark. Into the pit of the Demons. Billy stopped, bottom lip quivering. Wolfy turned toward him.

"Listen to me brother," voice calm and soothing, "you know you must do this. With the Demons on your side you might even become as strong as me. Come along Billy, down the ladder. Come on." Wolfy closed the shed door, making sure that they hadn't been seen. "Don't be afraid Billy, don't be."

Billy dried his eyes, looked once at his brother, and placed his foot on the first rung. He climbed down slowly, eyes clamped tightly shut. The darkness surrounded him completely. His breathing was loud and dull-sounding. The wooden ladder creaked. Soon, his bare feet touched the cold, damp soil and he let go of the ladder. He heard the trapdoor close as Wolfy followed.

"Stay in the middle Billy, right in the middle. Don't you touch the sides; it's not safe."

Billy stayed in the middle, toes sinking into the soft earth, nostrils flaring with the dank, musty, rotting scent of the soil. And he didn't touch the sides. Fear rose within him as, knees buckling, he lost his balance in the darkness and sat heavily on the soft ground.

"Keep very still Billy, and silent. Or else!" Wolfy's voice was low and half-whispered; muted and dampened by the surrounding earth, it sounded solid and utterly unresonant, like the voice of the dead. The older boy kept his bearings upon leaving the ladder, turned and sat cross-legged on the floor. From his shirt pocket he removed his precious silver lighter and reaching to his right, he felt for the red candle. Feeling it's clammy, slippery surface, he drew it to his chest.

Even with eyes wide open, for Billy the darkness was utter and total. It gripped and confused his senses. He held his breath. Unable to see or sense anything in the velvet pitch, the pit denied it's small size. Now in the thick silence it became a cathedral of night spreading huge black, starless wings over the whole wide world; monumentally immense. And there, crouched and bent, he sat; little Billy Saldek, squeaking and insignificant; ignored in the enormity of the dark.

And then, he let out his breath and with that soft sound the distant walls of the cathedral seemed to move inwards towards him at a dizzying speed. Suddenly, the vast immensity of the dark, was replaced in an instant with a tight, suffocating glove of blackness, seemingly only inches away from his face, thick and claustrophobic. The darkness became tangible. It tightened and constricted like a noose. It crept up his nostrils, forced its way into his gaping mouth, pressed hard against his consciousness. He could feel the relentless pressure of the darkness pushing in on his eyes, forcing them back into their sockets. Heart beating like an engine, he retched and spewed the contents of his stomach, feeling the sudden warmth of his vomit as it splashed over his bare legs. Gasping and wheezing and almost choking with the stench and the stifling dark, he was stung sharply by the back of Wolfy's hand, thrusting through the blackness, catching him on his cheek. Pain blossomed across his face.

"You dirty bastard!", yelled his brother, "Dirty fucking bastard!" He shook his fists furiously in front of him, but Billy couldn't see. "You splashed me." Wolfy howled with disgust. "Jesus, you dirty little shit." Wolfy was straining his voice with anger. Billy was shocked by the force of it. In fact, Billy was completely terrified.

"I'm sorry Wolfy, I couldn't help it," whimpered Billy, "it wasn't my fault."

"Shut the fuck up little brother." Wolfy was ranting. "Oh God how the Demons'll make you pay for that. Jesus what a stink! Do that again and I'll kill you, swear to God I will. Kill you dead! You can clean up that shit you little bastard, clean it up right now."

"W,...w,...what with?" Billy squeaked and stuttered.

"Your fucking shirt."

"B,...but mom'll k...kill me."

"I don't give a fuck! Either that or you can lick the bastarding shit up. Would you like that? Would you? Shall we see?" Wolfy struck out again into the darkness, but missed. "Bastard!"

"I c,...can't see to c,...clean it up Wolfy, I can't see." Billy was crying now, his chest heaving, breath catching. He had felt the rush of air as Wolfy's fist had narrowly missed his face. The darkness suddenly seemed to be filled with voices that laughed at him.

"I'm not going to call a single fucking Demon until you've cleaned it Billy, not a one. God I can hardly breath in here. Jesus!" Wolfy's chest hurt and his temples throbbed. "Are you cleaning it up you little shit? Well, ARE YOU?"

Billy slowly unbuttoned his shirt and began to mop the ground blindly in front of him. "I'm cleaning it up Wolfy, honest." He knelt and crawled in the warm vomit, vainly trying to soak it up with his shirt. The stink filled his nostrils and he gagged again, retching painfully.

"Just you dare! JUST YOU FUCKING DARE!"

Somehow Billy held back the bile in his throat. His sobbing became that of a wounded animal. He was cried out, exhausted, nothing more to give. When he was finished, he sat back and screwed his vomit and soil-covered knuckles into his eyes. Beyond mere terror, the young boy was strangely calm and aware. The voices of the dark had fallen silent. The pit was utterly quiet.

"Have you quite finished now Billy?" said Wolfy, anger in check.

"Yes thank you Wolfy. I've finished."

"That's good. Now what do we say?"

"We say `please Demon, show yourself to us'."

"That's right Billy. So say it, and I'll call the Demon." Wolfy flicked open the top of his petrol lighter and placed his thumb over the roller. The faint odour of petrol fought past the stink of vomit. He held his breath; waiting.

Billy's voice was so small, so diminutive. It was the voice of a lost child, thrown up on the shores of an alien land; alone and helpless:

"Please, Demon, show yourself to us."

The pit was suddenly ablaze with light. To their unaccustomed eyes, the still sparking flame burned into their retinas. The long, splayed-out wick caught instantly and gave birth to a huge yellow-tipped blue flame that danced as Wolfy moved the lighter from side to side.

"See now that the Demon has come," said Wolfy, face glowing and manic in the shimmering light. "See how He lives, see how He breathes air as we do, see how His life burns for us. Do you see the Demon Billy?"

"Yes Wolfy, I see the Demon."

"Is he not strong and beautiful?"

"I'm frightened Wolfy."

"IS HE not strong and beautiful?"

"He is Wolfy, yes; he is strong and very beautiful."

"And you should be frightened Billy, very frightened, because that is only right in the presence of the Demon. That is only right. Now, what do we do next?" Wolfy began to move the flame up and down.

"We feed the Demon."

"And what do we say?"

"We say `Please Demon, take this food as,... as,..." Billy faltered.

"As sustenance...," prodded Wolfy with exaggerated patience. Like a teacher, labouring the point.

"As sustenance," repeated Billy. "We give thanks."

"That's right little brother. And we do, don't we Billy? We do give thanks."

"Oh yes Wolfy, we do."

Wolfy held the red candle closer and transferred the flame from wick to wick. The candle spat and caught. He clicked the lighter shut. The light in the pit diminished slightly. Billy's eyes no longer stung, and he watched as the small flame grew, steady and unmoving in the stillness. He saw the pool of melted wax beneath the flame glisten like fresh-spilt blood. How gentle the flame was; how beautiful and pure. He gazed at it, into it, and beyond it. Wolfy sat cross-legged and transfixed; serene and angelic in the soft glow from the flame, black hair swept up and over his head to rest on his shoulders and back. He had removed his T-shirt. Billy could see it lying by the ladder, beside a pile of as yet unused animal skulls and bones. Billy looked around.

The dark walls of the earthen pit were embedded with animal bones and skeletons; dead and empty husks of creatures scavenged and collected by Wolfy since early childhood. Jutting out from the soil - or fastened and tied to root tendrils with string and wire - they lined the pit. In the faint candle-light, vacant eye sockets stared impassionedly into the pit; sightless dead things observing the living. Amongst this cadaverous detritus, Wolfy had fixed the occasional photograph; tattered and stained black and whites. Mom and Dad, together and separate; Billy in his wooden pram-wheel cart; various dead or missing family pets. Surrounded by countless lifeless husks, they looked like portraits of zombies.

Billy wondered to himself if this is really what happens to you after you die; if when after Jesus came, or Saint Paul, they used your bones to line the wall in a catacomb of the Demon. He turned and looked at his older brother closely, saw how busy he had been lately. On his wide hairless chest were new scars; flame scars. The scars of the Demon. They resembled a grotesque and hideous face, puckered and leering. It was a work of art, a sculpture in flesh and fire; some sections vibrant and barely healed, still crusted with scabs; others, the work of years' past; years of pain and tears. Busy, busy, busy.

"You like it?" Wolfy was watching Billy closely.

"I think so."

"What? You think so? The Demon has given me a new face Billy, and all you can say is that you think you like it." He looked into the flame.

"It must have hurt," said Billy.

"Yes, it hurt a lot. A hell of a lot. It killed me, as a matter of fact. Yes, that's right. You see, I died." Wolfy held the candle closer to his chest. The chest-face seemed to writhe and squirm. "But dying only made it easier. After the first death, there is no other. Did you know that? That's a human truth." Wolfy screwed the candle into the soil. A droplet of hot wax fell onto his finger. He didn't flinch. "This is the other me Billy; the real me. The Demon showed me,... showed me myself. Do you understand?"

"No."

"Huh. Would you like to understand? I mean really understand."

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You either want to or not."

"Will it be like the last time?" Billy shivered involuntarily.

"A bit. A little. That was only a taste of things to come. You were far too young to truly understand. Now maybe,... you see, we all of us have another inside. Another person, that is. Another me, and another you. We hide it, all of us, because we're frightened of it. Have you heard of Pandora's box?"

"No."

"It's an old story, from long ago,..."

"From before God?"

"Yes, I think it was from before God. It's fucking old anyway. It's about the first ever woman, and she had this box see? A box full of all the evil scabby things of the earth, scratched off everyone when they were born. Then the box, which was really big, was hidden away under lock and key so that everyone would be good and clean. And they were. At first people were friendly and kind, like sheep. And Pandora was told never to open the box, ever. But she did,..."

"Why?"

"Well, I think because she thought that it was wrong to be only good; that a person cannot be a real person with only good things inside, like Father Castle, you know. Him that smells of soap and goes on about how the meek'll inherit the earth and stuff. A right wanker. See, he's not real; he's still got half missing. All church people have. Anyway, this Pandora, well she thought 'fuck this for a lark,' and she went and opened the box and out flew all of the evils of the world all at once. That's why we are like we are."

"Where are they now?"

"What?"

"The evil things, where are they now?"

"All around. Everywhere." Billy glanced up at the skeleton-lined walls. The dead things watched him closely, listened intently to his every breath, smelt his fear; envied his life. Wolfy continued.

"Outside, but also inside. Inside us. All of us. That's my point. After Pandora, we became complete. But nowadays, they want us to hide it again. If they could scratch it off like before, they would. But it's these scabby things that make us strong. The Demon has shown me that. He helped me die and come back as a complete person, with a new face."

They fell silent. The pit and the dead things waited.

"But doesn't that mean that you're a bad person now," said Billy.

"No. Not bad. Good and bad aren't important. Strong, Billy, strong. Look at you: you're small and weak. Useless. Pathetic. Don't you want to be stronger?

"But wouldn't it be wrong?"

"Look, FUCK right and wrong, good and bad. They're not important. I'm talking STRENGTH here, for Christ's sake, real strength. Think what you could do with the Demon on your side."

Billy thought about what he could do with the Demon on his side. If he was strong, like Wolfy, he could do anything. Father, mother, even Wolfy would bow down to him. Especially Wolfy. He never knew it until now, until this moment, but now he knew that he hated Wolfy. Bitterly. He hated the jokes, the sarcasm and the bullying. He hated the torture. With the Demon on his side, Billy and his friends would see to Wolfy.

The darkness bore another voice. It spoke only to Billy. It spoke only for Billy.

"I want the Demon on my side, Wolfy. Please." Billy smiled to himself.

"That's good. That's how it should be." Wolfy stood and walked over to the ladder, brushing the earth from his trousers. He kicked loose soil over Billy's stinking shirt, looking over his shoulder at the small boy squatting in the candle-light.

"It will hurt," he said.

"I know," admitted Billy.

Wolfy cleared away the earth by the ladder and uncovered a small, brown metal box, rusted and pitted. He moved and sat down again opposite his brother, glancing across at him over the steady yellow flame. His eyes narrowed.

"It will hurt a lot," he said.

Billy had been just three years old when Wolfy had first shown him the Demon - far too young to understand the mechanics of his elder brothers mind. But he understood the pain alright; no problem there. It was a Sunday. Mom was entertaining and father was in town. It was sometime in November; raining and windy. Billy wobbled about uncertainly in the back yard, exploring, curious; covered in a thick, bright yellow canvas coat and woollen gloves, tied together with string looped through the arms. He was stomping in the rainwater puddle that always collected by the chicken hutch. He had already slipped and fallen down twice, but he was so intent in his game that he never cried, even though his left knee was grazed and bleeding. In fact, he was trying to chase the ripples away, but it seemed that every time he stomped on one, another replaced it, and another and another. Every single time! Engrossed, he was oblivious.

Wolfy sat hunched up on the porch underneath the wooden overhang close by the large, bakelite radio with the dark brown-mesh front, bored and frustrated; watching his baby brother enjoying himself. The rain drizzled constantly, but was blown sharp by frequent gusts of wind directly at Wolfy; no matter where he sat, right in the face. It annoyed the hell out of him. Having taken and watched enough, he rose from the porch like a cat rousing from slumber; stretching and pulling his shoulders apart. Ten steps later he was standing behind his brother who was squeaking in merriment at something in the puddle. Wolfy put a hand on Billy's shoulder. The little boy jumped and turned, giggling and smiling inanely, saturated and covered in mud and grass cuttings. Placing Billy gently on his shoulders, Wolfy stepped off towards the wooden shed.

Later, with the cloth gag in place, no-one had heard the small child scream as the flame burned into the soft, plump flesh of his upper arm.

Wolfy now opened the metal box, carefully. The hinges complained; the high squeaking sound strangely alien in the silence of the pit. Gently he withdrew the contents, wrapped in an old grey towel that was covered with dark crusty patches resembling, in the half-light, dried blood. As Wolfy unwrapped the towel, it occurred to Billy that his brother was observing some form of ritualistic facsimile of their table rules. Each movement was exact and practised and executed in an awed silence that was straight out of their father's book of table regulations. As Wolfy withdrew and placed his instruments on the towel, they duplicated the well-known pattern of knife, fork and spoon, side-plate, glass and napkin. Only these things were not to be found on the table of any decent folk. Billy didn't recognise them at all. They were, in fact, manufactured and constructed by Wolfy himself - his own special tools - altered and adapted from various sources, some blunt, some razor sharp. No-one touched them but he.

Billy looked on in silence as Wolfy laid out his implements. Although apprehensive, he was sure of his decision and prepared for the pain to come, concentrating on the glory of the achievements promised by his conversion to the faith. Wolfy glanced up.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?", he said. To be truthful, Wolfy hadn't expected his brother to be so calm. He found it unnerving and out of character. The boot had changed feet. He was quite prepared to call the whole thing off.

"I'm ready Wolfy," said Billy, "thank you."

His bluff called, Wolfy had no alternative but to continue. Billy reached and took Wolfy's T-shirt, spread it carefully on the earth by the candle and, turning onto his back, laid on top. The older boy leant across to tie the gag in place.

"I shan't scream Wolfy, I promise," said Billy.

"Oh I think you will little brother," replied Wolfy. With the heavy cloth strip tied over Billy's mouth and fastened securely behind his head, Wolfy took a long sharp knife from the box. Taking a small medicine bottle from the box, he unscrewed it and poured some faintly green liquid into a chipped enamel bowl, dipped the knife into it and held the blade over the candle flame; turning it, running the flame along it's entire length. It sizzled with a blue flame.

Billy stared up into the darkness. The skeletons whispered to him; soothed him, allayed his fears. Even with his eyes closed, he felt their presence around him and he heard the voice of the Demon; the spirit of the Flame. It spoke to him of the future, told of what could and will be. It became his tutor, and this his first lesson.

Wolfy knelt over him, and brought the knife into view.

"This is the knife," said the Demon, "with it shall be cut eyes so that I may see."

"Don't move Billy, not an inch. I shall go careful, but you mustn't move," said Wolfy.

"You'll be fine Billy," said the Demon, "now tell him."

"I'll be fine Wolfy," said Billy.

"And you will be still. Tell him that," whispered the Demon softly.

"The Demon is with me," said Billy, "I shan't move."

Wolfy looked down at Billy's chest, like an artist pondering over an empty canvas. Faces flashed before his eyes. He selected one.

The first cut wasn't very deep, angled as it was to cut only a thin flap of skin; it brought little blood. Nevertheless, Billy fainted. 'Just as well', thought Wolfy. Now he could work without distraction. Only once, when the heated spatula burned and shaped the prepared slivers of skin, did Billy flinch and shift in his unconsciousness. Wolfy had paused momentarily in his work, to allow his subject to settle down, continuing only after adding more chloroform to the cloth gag. He worked methodically and sure, with the precision of a master; cutting, moulding, burning, sealing.

This was a work of true vision, for only when the scars healed and whitened would the design take shape; and only after repeated sittings would the portrait be complete.


October 1992

"When I first met him in 1961, he worked in an old second-hand bookstore on Markham Street in downtown Toronto, `Little Gems' it was called, or something like that. It was only ten minutes from your grandmother's store, and I had got into the habit of popping in most days. It was an old shop, full to bursting with dusty books. Boxes and crates piled up, books and magazines left out in the shop, unpriced. I used to browse a bit, poke around, you know. The owner, an Indian called Danny, used to let me fiddle about; he was a friend of my mothers. You know me and books."

Outside it was early evening. Shadows stretched and fingered over the lawn. Anne was sat on the 4-seater, legs tucked beneath her; shoes abandoned. Christine sat on the floor, back resting on the sofa, gazing at the empty fire-place; listening. All this was new.

"Anyway, there was a day when Danny had to go out. Some woman out on Ward Island had died and bequeathed her book collection to the store or something. That was when I met your father. He'd been working at the shop for a while, but always in the back. I'd heard him, but never seen him. Danny had said in passing that he'd come from the orphanage, the large City institution downtown. Danny always took on boys from the orphanage whenever he could; he'd been there himself. The first sight I had of your father was his back. He was busy behind the counter and hadn't heard me approach. He was wearing an old pair of jeans, patched and worn, and a check shirt that had seen better days, but all I remember thinking was that his hair was clean and shiny. I coughed politely. Nothing. I put the book on the counter with more noise than was necessary, to attract his attention. Then he turned and looked up at me from beneath his tousled, curly brown hair. I knew that I had to have him. His eyes were so deep, almost without end, and so alive. His smile was so warm and friendly. But it was the way he looked right into me. He had such intimate eyes, sort of blue and violet at the same time. I know it sounds silly, but I remember feeling almost naked, like I'd forgotten to dress or something. I must have blushed or something, which was embarrassing, for me, because this look of utter concern washed over him and he offered me a seat. Well, I mumbled something, plonked two dollars on the counter and left. Can you believe I almost fainted when I got out of the shop? I was so short of breath. No-one had ever had that effect on me before; or since. It was ridiculous. I remember, I couldn't get him out of my mind. I hadn't been in love before, so this was all new to me, but it seemed so right, so perfect. And that, as they say, was the start of a wonderful romance."

"What about him," said Christine, "how did he feel?"

"Oh it took a while, he was so shy. Danny told me as much as he knew about him, and the more I heard, the more I wanted him. He had been in the orphanage since he had been eleven. His parents and family had died in a house fire, they had been immigrants from Germany before the war. They had all died, including his brother and young sister. William, your father, rarely spoke of them, but it seemed he loved them very much, particularly his little sister. In fact, you were named after her. Her name was Kristina. Anyway, as far as Danny knew, he had never had a girlfriend and his only friends had been orphans too and when the orphanage relocated, he had lost touch. He had had one close friend, a Jewish boy called Stein, but he had moved to the States. So your father was totally alone." Anne paused and lit a cigarette. Christine was listening intently, soaking in every detail.

"So you never met any of his family?"

"No," said Anne, "and looking back, I'm glad. After the trial, after he was committed, I found out some things. They were not nice people Chris."

"But there must be others in Germany, his grandparents?" said Christine.

"Your father never mentioned them. But they must be dead by now. This was a long time ago don't forget. William's mother and father emigrated in the mid-thirties."

"Strange to think that I may have family in Europe. Didn't he ever keep in touch with them?"

"Your father? No. Like I said, he never mentioned them, let alone kept in touch. Listen Chris, is there a point to all this? I hope you're not thinking,..."

"Mom, I'm just thinking out loud that's all. Why haven't you told me any of this before?"

A look of uncertainty washed over Anne's face. She frowned. "I saw no reason to. He's long dead. And he caused me so much pain in the past. It took me a long time to get over it, if I ever truly have. You were all that I had left. For a long time, when you were very young, I even resented you. Every time you looked up at me, it was with his eyes, his smile. There is so much of him in you Chris. But before, in Toronto,... the way it ended. It came as a shock. I didn't, and I don't, know whether I can go through it all again." Anne reached for the ashtray. Outside, the sky blossomed red. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I made the wrong choice? I don't believe that I ever did. Even now, I'm being pushed into this."

"I know," said Christine, "and I'm sorry, really. But it only needs telling once."

"I hope so. Look, I admit I hid it from you. I didn't want you to have a memory of him, even second-hand. You can be thankful for that. At least you were able to fantasise something loving, something perfect. But it wasn't like that; it was horrific. Will it really help you to know the truth?"

"Yes."

"Then perhaps you're right, perhaps the distance is great enough."

"From what you've said, at least you loved each other."

Anne dotted her cigarette. "I can't speak for his feelings, I never could. Oh yes, I loved him and I do believe that he felt something for me, at least at first, but when I found out about the state of his mind,..."

Christine changed the subject. She wasn't ready for that, yet. She wanted to build up a picture first, something positive;

"So he liked books?" she said. A pause.

"Yes. We had that in common. He used to read all the time, anything. He would devour Bertrand Russell and Virgil in the same way as a newspaper or magazine. He was such an intense reader. I never saw him put a book down unread - he never abandoned anything. And he seemed to be so retentive, so knowledgeable. He never had any formal qualifications, but he knew so much. A degree would have been child's play for him. He taught me a lot. We never used to go out, not like you'd expect. Occasionally we'd go for a walk, but we never went dancing or drinking or even to a movie together. We missed out on a lot of things, except what we saw on the television. But from that first day we were hardly ever apart. Even more so when Eunice died."

"What did Eunice think of him?"

"She thought he was lovely. She was smitten, like me. She started pushing me into marrying him after only a couple of months. I think that she knew she was ill, even then, and she didn't want to see me on my own."

"Was she at the wedding?"

"No. I waited and waited, but William was too shy to ask. Eunice died in '62, about seven months before the marriage. He was almost as upset as I was. I think that clinched it really. I asked him, can you believe it? Me! And he said that he wanted to think about it! And he did. He kept me waiting a week before saying yes. We had no living family and few friends so it was only a small wedding. Danny was the best man and your Aunt Joyce was my only bridesmaid. I remember William tried to contact his Jewish friend in the States, but with no luck. A few others from the store. That was it. We had a week's honeymoon by Lake Ontario that was memorable only for the wind and rain and there I was; Mrs. William Saldek."

Outside, as the sun slipped below the sea, a slight wind bent the tops of the cedars. Christine watched the conifers absently - eyes and mind curiously detached - aware and yet unaware of the goings on outside. It didn't seem relevant. She flicked her hair aside and turned to her mother.

"I wish I'd known him, Mom," she said. "That's what it's all about really. It's nothing to do with you; it's no criticism, you know that. I just wish I'd known him." She reached for her mother's hand, surprised to find it cold to the touch. She squeezed.

"As I said, you have no memory of him. The biggest part of me is glad of that, for my memories of him only give me pain. Even the good things are tainted. You see, he was too complicated for me, far too complex for me to understand. Looking back, the good times only served to leave me wide open for the later pain. Even after I'd been through it, seen the real person I'd married, even after reading the doctor's reports, I didn't really understand. Even now I don't know enough. When it came, It took me completely by surprise,"

"Tell me about it, Mom." Christine was ready; she was prepared at last.

Anne let drop her daughter's hand and closed her eyes. And then she told her about it.


May 1965

It annoyed her immensely. She tugged at it with all her might, but it simply wouldn't move. Behind her, on the bulky dansette, a .45 dropped noisily from the stack. The heavy arm lifted and in three jerky movements placed the needle none too gently on the record, missing the entry by a good quarter-inch and starting mid-way into the first verse. 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', complete with out-of-time scratches, boomed from the player. Anne whirled and reached for the volume control; too late. She heard the first tentative cry from the kitchen. Anne turned the player even lower and tip-toed into the kitchen and up to the wooden cot. She waited a couple of seconds and peered, from a discreet distance, over the edge. Anne had learned early on about the dangers of coming into her daughter's vision too early. Inside the pram, baby Christine wriggled once, gurgled and went back to sleep. Smiling, Anne turned and tip-toed out.

Her shoulders sagged when she saw the state of the front room. Decorating had never been her forte; organised decorating even less so. White sheets covered the furniture, but still hadn't prevented some paint from staining the chairs. The rolled-up carpet lay half-in, half-out of the room and the floorboards were covered in newspaper, liberally splashed with various colours of paint. A bucket of wallpaper paste stood in the almost exact centre of the room, and a trail of paste droplets led across the floor to the pasting table over eight feet away. Anne hadn't seen the paste-brush since this morning. It would turn up.

She stepped carefully past the paint tin lids and squared up to an oak wall cabinet that stood some three feet away from a finished section of wall. This thing had stubbornly refused to move, but Anne wasn't a quitter. The Righteous Brothers gave way to Ricky Nelson, Anne's favourite. She moved in close and took a measured hold; legs bent, arms straight and strained. She screwed her face up and threw back her head, pony-tail bobbing against her neck. The cabinet still refused to move and with a yelp of frustration, she gave up and dropped onto the sheet-covered couch. She wiped her forehead, spreading dirt from her hands onto her face, and reached for the bottle of beer, miraculously upright amidst the clutter at her feet. Taking a mouthful, she relaxed into the soft couch.

Anne listened to the record and looked out of the wide, floor to ceiling window and into the street. Pete Cooper and his wife Susan were lounging in the garden next door, while across the street, Mrs. Allen was chastising her poodle. Mr. Allen was scrubbing the car, as always; white foam drifting down the sloping drive and into the gutter. A noisy group of teenagers rode past on push-bikes. Anne lifted her eyes above the low rooftops, pleased to see only a few clouds in the blue sky of the late Sunday afternoon. She took another mouthful of beer, finishing the bottle and readjusted the elastic band on her ponytail. She sighed. She had hoped to have the room finished before her husband got home from the store. William wasn't a fan of decorating either, and she thought his trip to the bookstore was just a little too convenient, especially on a Sunday. But then she had been the one to suggest re-decorating.

It wasn't an old house, but she had lived here all of her twenty-s